


(3. Bait) / I'm just a teenage Anti-Christ, baby

by Mothfluff



Series: GO-ctober Prompts 2019 [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, M/M, October Prompt Challenge, One Word Prompts, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 16:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20877077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mothfluff/pseuds/Mothfluff
Summary: My attempts at an October Challenge, basically using the original Inktober prompts for drabbles.(Each prompt will be posted as part of a series, not chapters, so I can add tags/characters/ratings/trigger warnings for each instead of the whole she-bang)Prompt 3 - Bait"I know you think you’re being clever, but that only works because Aziraphale is too good for his own good to notice.”“What’s he supposed to notice, anyway?” Adam huffed, almost defensively.“It’s bait. All perfect Aziraphale-bait.” Crowley gave Adam a short smirk. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re doing a great job of it, and I should know – used it all myself often enough – but it’s so very obvious. You could just tell the sodding angel you want him to visit, you know? It’s not like he doesn’t like popping down here for a visit.”“I know.” Adam shuffled his feet, staring at the floor tiles. “It’s not really that, though.”





	(3. Bait) / I'm just a teenage Anti-Christ, baby

**Author's Note:**

> a more experimental thing without a story line really. Just a snapshot, because I really want more Crowley&the Them interactions, but it’s surprisingly difficult to write??

The phone rang, echoing through the bookshop.

It used to startle Crowley, months ago. Nobody called the bookshop except for himself, and he was right there on the couch, so unless the cellphone in his pocket had decided on a rather unnecessary buttdial, something was off. He and Aziraphale had swapped worried looks as the angel got up to pick up the phone – was it Heaven? Hell? Who else would've known this number?

(They'd both conveniently forgotten the fact that a business such as a vintage bookstore was usually something that might end up in the yellow pages or other such phone listings online. Funnily enough, no one before had ever bothered to phone a shop that was well known for being absolutely disinterested in gaining any kind of customer base.)

Nowadays, Crowley barely reacted when the phone rang. They both knew who it was.

Neither had truly figured out _how_ Adam had gotten the number, though.

(They'd both also conveniently forgotten that the Anti-Christ was a human teenager who knew very well how to use the internet to search for a phone number that was, as previously stated, on several business phone lists.)

So he just twirled his glass of wine while listening to Aziraphale pitterpatter over to the phone and answer it in the same friendly way he always did now.

“Why hello Adam! How nice of you to call. Mhm, yes. Oh, all's fine on this end of the line!” He giggled and Crowley groaned.

“Ah, I see. Mhm. Is that so? Well, that sounds quite interesting. Yes. I might have to stop by tomorrow to see it, then. Would that be alright? Splendid. See you then!”

Crowley's eyes trailed along with the angel as he sat back down again, picking up his book.

“What did the boy want this time?”

“Oh, he's found some books in his grandfather's attic, and some of them sound quite rare. I thought I might give them a look over, see if there's anything Mr. Young would be willing to part with.”

“You'll need a ride to Tadfield, then.”

“Oh, would you?” Aziraphale beamed at him, as if there had been even a second of doubt where it was not absolutely clear that Crowley would drive him. He didn't even need to pout to get the offer. “That'd be lovely, Crowley. I'm sure the children will be happy to see you too.”

“Mhm.” Crowley twirled his glass again. He knew what was happening here.

“Don't think I don't know what you're doing.” Crowley almost hissed at Adam, who'd come up to him sitting on the patio to the rather nice garden of his parents. The rest of the Them were inside, cross-legged around the living room floor as Aziraphale unpacked the giant suitcase stuffed with books and commented on every other book with some kind of story about authors and saucy rumours from way back when and other tales that they wanted to hear more about.

“I was just gonna ask you if you wanted to come inside. Mum's making tea.”

(Mum wasn't quite sure why she was absolutely okay with the two older gentlemen making regular visits to their home. She also wasn't quite sure how and where her father-in-law had acquired this collection of rare books and why he was so willing to part with it. Neither did he.)

“That's not what I'm talking about.” Crowley's eyebrow rose above his glasses, a stern look of only-almost-disapproval directed at the former and still-slightly Anti-Christ. “I mean the calls. All the things you find, and have to tell him about.”

He waved a hand towards inside, where Aziraphale was currently deep into a story about how absolutely ghastly the people had treated that fascinating young Shelley lady, while Pepper was almost glued to his lips.

“The books. That historic settlement they uncovered a few miles from here. The traditional Latino dishes Anathema keeps trying out. The flea-market full of antique snuffboxes and angel statuettes. I know you think you're being clever, but that only works because Aziraphale is too good for his own good to notice.”

“What's he supposed to notice, anyway?” Adam huffed, almost defensively.

“It's bait. All perfect Aziraphale-bait.” Crowley gave Adam a short smirk. “Don't get me wrong, you're doing a great job of it, and I should know – used it all myself often enough – but it's so very obvious. You could just _tell_ the sodding angel you want him to visit, you know? It's not like he doesn't like popping down here for a visit.”

“I know.” Adam shuffled his feet, staring at the floor tiles. “It's not really that, though.”

Crowley tilted his head, enough to pull more stuttering words out of the poor boy.

“S'just, if I ask him for a visit, he'll just apparate down here – is that the right word, apparate? For the thing you do? When you just, like, poof up somewhere?”

“I don't think there's a word for that. Call it whatever you want.”

“I think I read somewhere that it's called that.”

(Crowley was not about to tell him that the 'somewhere' he'd read it was probably the Harry Potter books, because that would mean both admitting that he'd read them himself, and also admitting that it was probably very much not what you would call it in real life. He instead decided to use the term himself from now on.)

“And what's so bad about him apparating to here? Much quicker and simpler than driving all the way.”

“Yeah.” Adam shuffled again. “But you need the car if you want to take stuff back to London, right?”

“I mean, I don't know how the angel does it, but yeah. I can't really carry five different kinds of empanadas back without making a mess.” (He'd tried. It had taken a while to shower off the sugary residue of eclairs stuck to his wings, and Aziraphale had tried very hard not to laugh as he'd suddenly appeared in the backroom covered in chocolate sauce and strangely exploded choux pastry.)

“You see. That's why.”

Crowley stared at Adam. He did not see. He didn't really understand. Talking to this kid was like pulling teeth. He was always mumbling, looking away, asking about random things that barely ever seemed to get to the point he wanted to get to, making jokes and being cheeky instead of answering questions, and generally being a pain in the-

wait a minute. Just how much time had he spent talking to Adam each time Aziraphale had dragged him down for a visit?

“You're not baiting Aziraphale to come down here.” He finally got it. “You're baiting him to _bring me._”

“I guess.” Adam shrugged his shoulders, trying to appear cool, not as if Crowley had figured out exactly what he felt so awkward about. He hadn't, really, as proven by his questioning look.

“But why? Aziraphale's the one with all the stories-” another wave to the inside, where Aziraphale had gone from Mary Shelley over to Shakespeare in such a round-about way no one was really sure quite how he'd gotten there, least of all he himself “-and the treats and the, the interesting stuff.”

“I know. But.” Adam thought about how to phrase this, and failed spectacularly. “He's not the one who knows stuff. Stuff I want to know.”

“You don't want to know about Shakespeare's secret lovers?” He shot a glance inside, where Aziraphale was quickly switching to a more age-appropriate history lesson as Adam's mother set down the tray of teacups and biscuits.

“I mean stuff I have questions about. You know. Stuff about people like us.” Adam gave Crowley a sideways glance, and luckily it didn't take as long as it had before for him to understand this time. His voice was almost kind now.

“Demon stuff.”

“Yep. I don't think an angel knows a lot about that, right?”

“You know you're not really a- I mean- a demon is-”

“I know. But it's close enough, alright?” Adam sighed. “At least closer than an angel would be to what I- was. Am? I don't know. Things are weird and I don't know anything about it and I don't want to mess anything up but stuff keeps happening and I just. Don't know anyone I could talk to except you.”

Crowley stared at him, a blank expression on his face. He was very skilled not to show his reactions on the outside, after centuries of practice at chatting with the supposed enemy one was not meant to mentally draw hearts and sparkles around any time they smiled at you.

(On the inside, he was simultaneously screaming and swearing. Raising the supposed Anti-Christ as a kid was one thing, but he was not at all prepared to have “The Talk” with a teenage Satan. He would have to talk about powers, and morals, and all sorts of icky stuff. And feelings, probably. He was not yet skilled at that.)

He hadn't realised at least a minute must have passed while he was still staring without a reaction. Adam seemed more and more nervous, for obvious reasons. Crowley sighed.

“Guess I'll have to give you my number now. So you can stop conjuring up random things that should not exist to get Aziraphale to visit.”

“I didn't conjure- I just thought about what kind of stuff might interest him, and then it showed up.”

“Yep, that's a thing we'll need to talk about as well at some point.” He sighed again, finally getting up from the bench. “Let's get some tea and biscuits in you first before your friends finish them on their own. Or Aziraphale does.”

Adam snickered with a quick look inside, where Aziraphale was on his 8th or maybe 9th biscuit by now, before looking up into eyes hidden behind sunglasses with a fond sort of look on his face that Crowley knew too well.

“Thanks.” And then, after he'd waited for the usual “Don't _thank_ me” that surprisingly never came, but instead was handed a scrap of paper with a number on it that had miraculously appeared in Crowley's hands, “is it ok if I ring Aziraphale too, though? He's fun to have around.”

“Sure. When it comes to helping out the Son of Satan, we're sort of a package deal anyway.”


End file.
